But if you're looking for a bike that's slow, heavy, with shit susension, comedy brakes and unreliable too (why not go the whole hog?) do your brains in and try a KLR. It's the bike that does everything...badly!

Mine IS slow, poorly suspended, has terrible brakes, but I have never had to have a tow

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"You can have anything you want, but noteverything you want."

The easy(lazy) way to be fluent(well...maybe fluent is stretching things) in numerous languages. I've never used this gadget. Just saw it in the NatGeo catalog. Maybe some of the inmates here have used it or something like it and can comment on its value or lack thereof.

The thing with that (and indeed phrasebooks), is they are great for initiating a conversation by asking the first question, but no help when someone actually replies

We did spend five days in Magadan. Through Adrian, which we met in Yakutsk, we got in contact with Olga Izotova. She runs an adventure company specializing in hunting and fishing trips and trips to the Gulags amongst other things. She also coordinated a lot of stuff for the BBC when they did some story about Tomtor in the winter.

Hotels in Magadan are pretty expensive and through Olga we rented an apartment for a few days. At a fraction of the cost of staying in a hotel.

When we were in Yakutsk Bolot told me that he had met a few Norwegians passing through Yakutsk on their way to Magadan in some old Land Cruisers. He even had a phone number. I rang the number and Audun answered in the other end. He was planning to ship his car home. We agreed on meeting in Magadan.

Our original plan, and the only way of shipping stuff out of Magadan, was to ship our bikes to Vladivostok by container. I know that someone previously (Walter) had managed to put the bike on the deck of the boat, but that option was now supposed to be impossible. So we were to ship the bikes and fly down to Vladivostok and wait there. This would take a week or two. Then when the bikes arrived in Vladivostok we would repack them in a new container and ship them to Norway. Then we would fly home. This would ad another two to three weeks to our trip. Just waiting I wasn't too keen on that.

The reason you can't ship abroad directly from Magadan it that Magadan has no customs service, and therefore you can not ship directly abroad.

Anyway, the first few days we just wandered around in Magadan. Had some nice food

Then we met up with Ilya, Katja and Alexander and had a few beers at the Green Crocodile Pub

We went up to Maska Skorbi and had a look.

It was a very spacial place to be.

Olga was our guide and we met some locals.

They were celebrating something and when in Rome we did as the Romans

Anyway, back to the shipping issue. We did some research and figured out that it should be possible to ship directly from Magadan to Norway. We contacted Yuri in Vladivostok. Yuri is "the" man in Vladivostok when it comes to bikers. He is mentioned in a lot of different forums and everyone gives him the best recommendations

In order to ship something from Magadan and through Vladivostok you have to be in Vladivostok in person in order to do the customs. Thats the main rule. That was not really an option for us. Our trip was done and for us to just wait in Vladivostok for two to three weeks was not an option. After lots of back and forth we concluded that it was possible to ship from Magadan as long as we empowered someone in Vladivostok to act on our behalf and it seemed like Yuri was our man. The problem was that we had to arrange all the paperwork in Magadan

We can order food in Russian, but arranging transport documents and going to government offices was a far fetch. We needed help and help we got in form of a very nice blond girl called Tanya Sorry no pictures

Tanya was the one Ewan and Charlie used when they came to Magadan. Tanya was effectiveness personated. We spent one day running around to different offices and finally we got a notarius publicus to sign the official paper.

What we had to do was to empower Yuri to act on our behalf with regards to the bikes. That also meant that he could sell the bikes if he wanted to Based on what we had read Yuri was a man to be thrusted and we did that. We got the letter and sent it to Yuri.

That was it Now all we had to do was to pack the bikes in the container. We needed three bikes and one Land Cruiser in one 20' container. It was a bit short I demounted my bike and then put it in the back of the car. Along with all the rest of our stuff.

Then we fitted the whole lot into the container My bike in the back of the car. Steve's bike over the hood and Erik's in the front. We could now get the h**l out of Dodge and home to our loved ones

Steve left a day before us so we arranged the packing with Audun. Finally we said good bye to Olga and Audun, and went down to the bus station. Audun was staying a few more days since his passport was somewhere in Mongolia. But thats another story

Erik and I was now to leave this great country and as a last thank you mother Russia gave us a final hug. When we arrived at the bus station a local guy came over to us and asked if we were going to the airport. He and his wife were going to pick up some family members and if we needed a lift we could come along

Our great adventure had come to an end. The country and the people we have met has marked us for life. In the most positive way

Now a new adventure is in the molding pot. Same country, but different place. That will be another story here on advrider

To all the people who have followed us: Thank you very much See you on the road somewhere

Thank You for this great adventure Report that I followed from day one.
I realise, reading through it, and the tons of Information it conveys, how much different Russia is nowadays, compared to my trip there in 1994. The authentic russian spirit (and I don't mean vodka) is still alive, and it΄s good so.
There is a very special room for Russia in my heart and soul, I was 21 when I travelled from France to there on my DR350 and finally worked there. Like the adventurers of this story, I was fascinated by Russia. I recall being the very first biker the customs saw crossing the Russian-Letvian border, the customs invited me for dinner, from the very first meter into Russia, I was to know their legendary hospitality.
Thumbs up to all the riders for sharing this adventure with us, and at the first place to Walter for this and all the work done